Author: Albert Silver
Date: 08:50:08 11/02/97
Go up one level in this thread
On November 02, 1997 at 10:38:10, Moritz Berger wrote:
>I would like to hear your opinion about the main argument to justify
>copy protection with a dongle (paraphrased in my own words):
>
>"I a niche market like chess software, it is absolutely necessary to
>have copy protection.
>
>There is enough past experience to conclude with absolute certainity
>that having no copy protection is detrimental to product sales and
>endangers the very existence of a company."
>
>
>
>Obviously, the majority of all chess software publishers seems to
>believe in this reasoning.
>
>
>I would like to know the experience of other companies who sell non
>protected chess software (Chess Mentor, Rebel 9, Bookup, who else???) -
>did you lose your business or do your customers buy your products
>exactly because you have no copy protection?
>
>My own impression is that e.g. ChessBase is losing tremendous sales for
>its flagship product ChessBase 6 because of the copy protection issue.
>Am I the only one who waited literally years before finally reluctantly
>buying it in spite of the dongle? Or are there others who would buy it
>at the regular price ($240) if only the dongle was missing?
>
>
>Please treat this as a quick opinion poll, I don't want to exchange
>arguments about the various issues with the dongle here but instead
>simply try to quantify
>* how many users find a dongle acceptable
>* how many find the dongle unacceptable
>* if there are more lost sales due to the dongle than it potentially
>saves by preventing piracy
>
>
>Moritz
It's difficult to treat this as just a poll because of an unusual
comment you inserted: that certain program were bought only due to
the lack of copy protection. I will say that copy protection for me
is a deterrant, and yes, because of the blasted dongle, I have NOT
bought ChessBase. I, instead use their limited, but dongleless, demo.
On the other hand, I won't say I have bought software "just because"
there wasn't any copy protection. I buy software because it's good,
but truly, ChessBase won't benefit from my purchase. Nor will I stoop
to buying a pirated version in spite of how easy it would be:
I live in Brazil, where things are absurdly unregulated. If I open the
Monday edition of the paper, when the weekly computer section comes
out, I would find at least 100 ads selling custom made CDs with any-
thing my little dishonest consumer heart could want. Why am I saying
this? To try to convince you I'm a saint? Of course not. Merely to
point out that it isn't copy protection that is protecting the soft-
ware companies' sales. If I wanted to buy software illegally, there
would be nothing to it. I heard only one story about a legal customer
of chessbase who had a problem with the dongle, but it was enough to
convince me to not buy it. This customer in question, bought ChessBase
legally, but a month later, now in a foreign country, suffered from
some powersurge, and the dongle was rendered useless. He was given
the option to buy a new one for almost the same price as the brand
new package. Naturally, the incident wasn't ChessBase's fault, but of
what reassurance was this to the customer? As this has happened to
me with my modem, which was burned through a powersurge through the
phoneline, I understand how easily this could have happened. Refills
are bad enough, but to have to depend on a dongle for the functionality
of my software? Forget it.
Albert Silver
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